PHOENIX Project

Towards the Resilient Factory: Cyber-Physical Systems for Smart Factory Objects

Eurostars number: E! 9356
Start Date: 01/09/2015
End Date: 31/08/2018


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Project Objectives

As acknowledged by Industry 4.0, Cyber Physical Systems (CPS) and the Internet of Things (IoT) are considered central driving forces of the so-called fourth industrial revolution.

The PHOENIX project goal is to instrument the factory objects with intelligent wireless sensors and transform them into smart networked objects, which detect and self-protect from failures.

The system that we propose represents thus a new product for the manufacturing industry and a major step forward towards the future Resilient Factory. The Resilient Factory is characterized by robustness (minimal downtimes) and flexibility (plug & produce, decentralization).

PHOENIX System

The PHOENIX system will be a kit with several wireless sensors (pluggable to molds or machinery) and a base gateway connecting to the factory infrastructure. The development is based on already existing elements, such as sensors, low-power wireless, embedded systems etc. The huge advance performed in these fields in recent years makes it possible to create an integrated, cost-effective and high-quality solution. The PHOENIX consortium has extensive expertise in developing hardware beyond state of the art.

However, despite the fact that the hardware "ingredients" for building such a solution already exists, the way to mix and integrate them in a working system requires a major step beyond state of the art and a high degree of innovation. By embedding the intelligence and self-assessment into the factory objects, a significant reduction of costs with defected tools, parts and re-machining - estimated at 10% of the factory annual turnover - is possible, while at the same time improving the overall productivity and quality of the production process.

The PHOENIX system will be promoted as a cost-effective and complete solution, simple to install and operate, compared to existing/competing systems, which are incomplete and often both expensive and complex, thus likely unaffordable for installations at scale and for SMEs.

Project Consortium

The project is multi-disciplinary in essence, at the intersection of several R&D thematic areas: digital factory, embedded systems, wireless networking, data visualization and enterprise systems. Complementary expertise of partners is therefore required.

The success of the project relies on the tight collaboration among the three innovation-driven SMEs (Inertia Technology, Leotech and PROSYS PC) and one renowned research institute (Fraunhofer IAO) from three EU countries: The Netherlands, Germany and Romania. The partners have complementary expertise and proven track records in their field.

Inertia Technology (NL)

Inertia Technology was founded as a high-tech SME in the field of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs).

The core research and innovation of the founders were awarded with the prestigious prize Christiaan Huygens 2009 by the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Inertia gained a leading position in the development of miniaturized wireless sensors that process and communicate motion, vibration and orientation features of interest.

Unlike traditional sensing systems, Inertia focuses on distributed solutions inspired from the field of wireless sensor networks. Benefiting from the wireless communication capabilities, the processing of motion data is done online and in collaboration with other nodes, enabling an increased accuracy of detected features and instantaneous feedback.

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Fraunhofer IAO (DE)

The Fraunhofer Society (Fraunhofer Gesellschaft - FhG) performs basic and mainly applied research with direct benefits to private and public enterprises and of wide benefit to society. FhG is Europe’s largest application-oriented research organization. FhG is a non-profit organization. At present, FhG maintains 66 institutes and independent research units, with more than 22,000 staff members.

The Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Engineering, FhG-IAO provides solutions to organizational and technological challenges, particularly within the production environment of industrial enterprises. The main research activities of IAO cover the fields of innovation & technology management, engineering systems, information & communication systems, business development & work design, and service engineering. To bridge the gap between research and industry, FhG-IAO has been consulting over hundred companies of various branches and sizes.

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Leotech (DE)

Leotech GmbH is a small and innovative rapid prototyping and rapid tooling SME. The company was founded in 1998 as a service provider for metal casted prototypes. Leotech GmbH was worldwide the first company using a Speedform System (Vacuum-Difference-Pressure-Casting) for producing technical metal casted prototypes. Step by step new technologies were integrated into the process chain.

During the last years, Leotech GmbH changed to a contract manufacturing service bureau with a wide range of innovative manufacturing technologies for early models, prototypes in different development phases up to small series production.

Today the company offers its customers the whole rapid prototyping process chain (Stereolithography, Laser Sintering, Vacuum Casting, Metal Casting, Rapid Tooling and Injection Moulding). The main customers are in the field of automotive but also electronics, house ware, toys, medical and mechanical engineering. The main competence of Leotech GmbH is the intelligent, economic and very time effective combination of traditional models and mould making methods with the innovative generative production technologies of rapid prototyping and rapid tooling.

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Prosys Pc (RO)

PROSYS PC is an SME with long experience in the design and implementation of complete sensing, monitoring and control systems in a wide range of applications, from surveillance of public utilities to industrial automation. PROSYS develops customized solutions and offers a large range of services for custom hardware design, implementation and testing, as well as (web-based) user interfacing.

The expertise of the company covers both the hardware and the software for the instrumentation of complex applications, laying at the intersection between research and engineering. PROSYS has been actively involved in R&D activities together with major research and academic institutes, as well as key public utilities providers.

PROSYS has been involved in several Romanian and European research projects concerning: (i) the study of novel sensing systems for real-time monitoring and regulation of temperature in buildings, (ii) wireless inertial sensing for structural health monitoring, as well as (iii) the design of new electrochemical sensors for environmental monitoring. PROSYS has developed the hardware sensor platform for AAL healthcare applications and contributed to the hardware design of the SIRIUS project wireless industrial control platform.

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Meetings

16 Oct. 2015
Kick-off meeting

Enschede (NL)

29-03-2016
Project meeting and experiments

Stuttgart (DE)

15-07-2016
Experiments

Stuttgart (DE)

03-03-2017
Project meeting

Bucharest (RO)

21-04-2017
Project meeting and experiments

Stuttgart (DE)

21-06-2017
Project meeting

Enschede (NL)

10-07-2017
Project meeting

Stuttgart (DE)

Reports, publications and other dissemination events

D2.1 - System specifications and design (initial version)

Feb. 2016

D2.3 - Test results and system evaluation (initial version)

Aug. 2016

D2.2 - System specifications and design (final version)

Oct. 2017

Contact details

info@inertia-technology.com